John Hagan brought a case against Thomas J. Foison in the Supreme Court of the United States, claiming that he had been wrongfully deprived of his property by Foison. The dispute arose from an agreement between Hagan and Foison to purchase certain lands in Alabama for $2,000. According to this agreement, if either party failed to pay their portion of the money within three months after it was due then they would forfeit all rights and title to the land. When neither party paid their share on time, Foison took possession of both portions as well as any profits made from them while Hagan argued that he should still have some claim over his portion since he had not forfeited it yet according to their contract terms. The court ultimately sided with Foison because although there were no explicit forfeiture clauses included in the original contract, they found that such provisions could be implied under common law principles which allowed parties who did not fulfill contractual obligations on time or at all to lose any right or title associated with those agreements regardless of whether specific language was used or not when creating them initially.

In the case of John Hagan v. Thomas J. Foison, Justice McLean delivered a dissenting opinion in which he argued that the plaintiff had not been given due process and was denied his right to a jury trial as guaranteed by the Constitution of Georgia. He noted that although there were some exceptions to this rule, none applied in this particular case since it involved an action for damages arising from trespass on land owned by Hagan. Furthermore, Justice McLean stated that even if such an exception did apply, it should be narrowly construed so as not to deprive citizens of their constitutional rights without sufficient cause or justification. Finally, he concluded that because no jury trial was held in this instance and no evidence presented before the court below regarding damages suffered by Hagan due to Foison's trespass on his property, judgment should have been rendered for him instead of against him as it ultimately was at the Supreme Court level.